The Harvard law professor is one of Donald Trump’s most vocal defenders on the Russia investigation, having compared special counsel Robert Mueller to Stalin and Captain Ahab (Trump being the white whale in this analogy). Dershowitz has even written a quickie book defending Trump. “The idea of trying to create crimes just because we disagree with [Trump] politically, and target him, really endangers democracy,” Dershowitz said on a recent radio broadcast. “[It] reminds me of what the head of the KGB said to Stalin: ‘Show me the man, and I will find you the crime.’”
But according to Betsy Woodruff of The Daily Beast, Dershowitz’s advocacy on behalf of Trump might be being conducted in private as well as in public. “A person familiar with the president’s legal affairs said there are concerns Dershowitz has talked about legal affairs with Trump,” Woodruff reports.
It is plausible that Dershowitz’s strident public advocacy is an attempt to angle a position as Trump’s attorney. A notorious ambulance chaser, Dershowitz is on the path to becoming America’s most famous (or notorious) defense attorney ever: the man who defended Claus von Bülow, O.J. Simpson, and President Donald Trump, should the president need those services. Not even Clarence Darrow achieved anything comparable.